A Popular Dictionary of Judaism
Hostility against the *Jews. Although the term ‘anti-Semitism’ is of 19th Century origin, dislike and persecution of the Jewish people goes back to ancient times. The New Testament has a strong anti-Semitic bias and, as the humanist Erasmus remarked in the 16th Century, ‘if it is incumbent upon a good Christian to hate the Jews, then we are all good Christians’.
Jews fared rather better in Muslim lands although they did not generally achieve full civil rights. The *Zionist movement grew out of the conviction that Jews would always be the victims of anti-Semitism and that the creation of a Jewish homeland was the only solution. The State of *Israel was eventually declared after the devastation of the *holocaust, but because of Arab-Israeli conflict, Muslim anti-Semitism is particularly virulent today. (See *HOLOCAUST, *ZIONISM).
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